The Council of Trade Unions Biennial Conference 2013 examined the issues facing working people in New Zealand since the last gathering in 2011, and debated how to promote “Fairness at Work” as we face a fork in the road over the next two years.

Down one possible path, our future will see the end of guaranteed meal breaks, a loss of bargaining power, rising inequality and growing insecurity at work.

But the good news, conveyed in a speech to the Conference by Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei, is that we are heading towards election year with the momentum to create a different future.

Former NZNO organiser Jeff Sissons, now working as the CTU General Counsel, began by giving an overview of where we’re at now.

The proportion of workers belonging to a union fell from 50% to just over 20% during the 1990s, he said, as the National Government removed the legal right to belong to a union, in breach of our international human rights obligations.

The Employment Relations Act, passed by the Labour-led government in 2000, enabled unions to halt the decline. But it wasn’t enough to generate any real recovery, and workers in many jobs (especially in the private sector) are still without union protection.

As a result, New Zealand had the fastest growing gap between rich and poor of any developed country over the last 20 years.

Jeff Sissons discussed international research by two British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, showing that this inequality is behind many of today’s public health problems, from obesity, to mental illness and child mortality from accidents. And New Zealand’s income gap is still growing.

The Conference also launched a major new CTU report on the silent epidemic of insecure work (http://union.org.nz/underpressure). Under Pressure: Insecure Work in New Zealand shows that at least 30% of New Zealand’s workers – over 635,000 people – are now in jobs without guaranteed hours, ongoing certainty of employment, or employment rights like sick leave, holidays, safety at work and freedom from discrimination. These workers often lack sufficient income and are powerless to change their situation.

CTU President Helen Kelly said the problem of insecure work could affect up to 50% of New Zealand’s workers. It has spread far beyond groups like young people working in fast food and is now creeping into the “good jobs” in health, banking, higher education and in government departments.

Helen Kelly mentioned the 120 staff employed in Elderslea Rest Home in Upper Hutt, who were told in July that management wanted to remove permanent rosters and roster them all casually, according to occupancy.

National’s latest changes to the Employment Relations Act will accelerate these trends and bring the problem of insecure work to more and more workplaces.

“Labour will immediately raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. We will support the campaign for a Living Wage for all New Zealanders. A Labour Government I lead will scrap National’s unfair employment law changes – in the first hundred days.

“There will be no more fire at will without even an explanation. There will be no more attacks on collective bargaining, giving employers the right to opt out of good faith process. There will be no more attacks on vulnerable workers. There will be no more taking away smokos and lunch breaks.

“We will restore the protections for our most vulnerable workers currently contained in Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act.

“We will scrap youth rates because they violate the principle of equal pay for equal work. We will work to ensure pay equity. Labour will extend paid parental leave to a minimum of 26 weeks, as set out in Sue Moroney’s Member’s Bill.

“The Labour Government I lead will turn back the tide of anti-worker legislation that has been flowing from the Key Government for the last five years.”

Both Cunliffe and Metiria Turei signaled support for an overhaul of employment laws, tying into CTU efforts to move beyond the Employment Relations Act and further strengthen unions, collective bargaining and security at work.

“Labour will implement a new employment relations framework based on industry standard agreements”, said Cunliffe, “whereby working New Zealanders have a real choice to get together and negotiate better pay and conditions with their employers.”

But it also appeared that Cunliffe is straddling a contradiction. “These changes are not a one-off”, he said. “They need to be an enduring part of a New Zealand that finds common ground between productive workers and good employers.”

What happens when there is no “common ground”?

Cunliffe plugged his appointment of unionists Andrew Little, Darien Fenton and Carol Beaumont to industrial relations positions. But at the same time, he has appointed neo-liberal hardliner David Parker to the finance portfolio.

“New Zealand needs a strategic shift in economic management”, he said, “from a cost-based strategy that treats workers as commodities whose cost is to be minimised, to one that sees workers as an integral part of a system that creates high value products and services”.

Does this verbal sleight-of-hand conceal two economic management strategies which are essentially the same?

The contradiction was also clear in Cunliffe’s response to a question from the Conference floor about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He expressed support for PHARMAC, but also reiterated his party’s conditional support for the free trade deal threatening our state drug-buying agency.

How Cunliffe’s contradiction would play out in practice in a Labour-led government will depend on how unions respond.

Metiria Turei credited our movement with opening up the possibility of a different future, a path that is “good for people, good for the planet”.

“Workers and their unions are among those at the heart of the gathering momentum”, she said. “Thousands have joined rallies and stood up against National’s attacks”.

The next step, she said, is the referendum on the sale of Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, Genesis Power, Solid Energy and Air New Zealand, to be held between 22 November and 13 December.

NZNO supports the Save Our Assets campaign because warm homes, power prices and ultimately electricity privatisation are a health issue.

“We need to use events like the asset sale referendum to maximum advantage”, said Helen Kelly. “Delegates in workplaces can facilitate the voting in the asset sale referendum – get people who do not get a paper to get on the roll, and check that those with a paper cast their vote.

“We then need to keep the momentum going into next year. We can make the difference.”

As Greg Lloyd, EPMU General Counsel pointed out in his article “Looking at the Big Picture,” the apparently minor and technical changes in the ERA Amendment Bill amount to an attempt to undermine collective bargaining.

We can only improve our wages and conditions if we oppose these attacks, and defend the right to collectively bargain at a minimum.

Not just about voting
The National government needs to be defeated.

However, during 9 years of a Labour Party government, real wages continued to decline while the rich list shot up. Labour’s Employment Relations Act also contains significant restrictions on the right to strike, which is necessary to workers’ power.

It was only a mass campaign under the slogan Supersizemypay, including both political campaigning and industrial action, that finally saw the rise to a $12 minimum wage in 2008.

Regardless of who is in parliament, we must organise in our communities to challenge these attacks from the ground up.

We need fighting unions
Labour leaders including Darien Fenton have argued that the scab bill is unnecessary, because strike rates are so low. However, the lack of strike action is part of the problem.

Unions currently cover less than 10% of the private sector, while real wages have declined 25% over the past 30 years.

In Europe and elsewhere, generalised strike action has confronted the march of austerity and offered a vision of peoples’ power. We need to rebuild a union movement willing to take action, in workplaces and communities, to challenge the attacks of successive Labour and National governments.

Global support for the struggle of meat workers at Tally’s owned AFFCO plants is grew when the International Union of Food Workers passed a resolution of support and solidarity from their Geneva Congress last month. A resolution supported the workers has also been passed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). 450 workers were locked out and a further 700 are engaged in strike action in a dispute lasting the better part of three months.

Eight migrant workers detained in northland

After a joint operation with the police Immigration New Zealand has detained eight migrant workers; seven Thai nationals and one Malaysian. The workers came to New Zealand under the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme but were allegedly working in breach of their visas. While their former New Zealand employers could face fines up to $50,000 the workers themselves will likely be deported.

Employment law changes announced

The government has announced changes to the Employment Relations Act which will mean that employers are not required to conclude a collective agreement, and will be able to opt out of multi-employer bargaining. A provision that sees new employees covered by a collective agreement for the first 30 days of their employment will also be removed. The changes have been roundly criticised by the union movement.

55 manufacturing jobs go in Auckland

55 jobs are gone with the closure of Auckland based tube and wire products manufacturer, Wire by Design. The company had been embroiled in a three year long legal wrangle with Transit New Zealand over a compensation claim for the relocation of its factory following Transit’s building of the Onehunga motorway extension. During that time Wire by Design had fallen behind with his tax payments to Inland Revenue and went into voluntary liquation. The EMPU which covered workers at the business says that the government is at fault as the job losses have resulted from government mismanagement.

Foreign charter vessels banned

In a surprise move the government has banned foreign charter vessels from fishing in New Zealand waters. It has legislated a ban that will be transitioned over the next four years. Last year all 32 Indonesian crew on the Korean owned Oyang 75 walked off the fishing vessel in Lyttelton alleging sexual and physical abuse. The Oyang 70, owned by the same company, had earlier sunk claiming the lives of 6 fishermen. Labour conditions in some instances are akin to slavery on some vessels. Allegations of illegal fish dumping have also been made against foreign charter vessels.

Since the August issue of The Spark a second wave of activity has crossed the country’s major centres in opposition to the employment law changes. Ian Anderson, a Workers Party member in Wellington reports below on activities in the capital.

Over August, two major events were organised in Wellington against the government’s attacks on workers. There was a public meeting against anti-worker laws, and the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) Fairness at Work rally.

Organised by a group including Workers Party activists, unionists and others, Thursday’s “Anti-Worker Laws” public meeting was a success. Due to heavy promotion including posters, leaflets, a Facebook event and a press release, turnout was good with around 60 people showing up. The CTU refused to promote the event, although they did take the opportunity to put up posters promoting their rally on Sunday.

Wellington protest August 2010

The event was held in St John’s on Willis. Starting at 7:30, Bill Logan of the International Bolshevik Tendency introduced the event with an overview of the new laws, introduced by Kate Wilkinson that very day, and their implications for the working class. Logan emphasised that this was not simply a “workplace” issue, but a class issue that affected families and children’s welfare. [Read more…]

By Spark reporterThe Spark September 2010
Resistance is beginning. Unions, the left, and advanced layers of workers have started campaigning against the employment law reform proposals which were announced by the National government in mid- July 2010. National’s proposals, if implemented, will impact on sick leave and annual leave provisions, union access to work sites, the ability of individuals to challenge unfair dismissals, and the possibility of challenging unfair dismissals at all within the first 90-days of an individual s employment in a new job. As a package, these changes will further shift the balance of power to the employers by driving down collective bargaining power. Essentially, the rate of exploitation of our class will be increased so as to resolve the recession and recovery in favour of the employers.

A Private Member’s Bill introduced by the National Party MP Tau Henare has been drawn from the ballot to be debated in Parliament. The Bill proposes to amend the Employment Relations Act as follows:

“A strike may not proceed under this Act, unless the question has been submitted to a secret ballot of those employees who are members of the union that would become parties to the strike if it proceeded.”

The Council of Trade Unions has announced its “support in principle” for the bill, “as it largely reflects current practice.”

The British experience may be of some use in analysing the effect of secret ballots. Over there, the law has required a secret ballot prior to strike action for nearly 30 years. I asked an official with the Postal section of the Communication Workers Union his opinion on the issue. This is his response:

What the secret ballot does is slow things down and makes it impossible to take spontaneous official action as a response to something immediate. What tends to happen then with our members is that they walk out unofficially. We are required as a Union to formally repudiate this action, which we always do but no-one has ever taken any notice of this.

The problem with strike ballots is the law that surrounds them and the way judges interpret this. Recently both we and Unite have run into trouble with the law concerning the information you have to provide to the employer on who is going on strike. This has become ever more onerous and now requires us not just to provide names but grades and details of workplace. With the best will in the world, this is impossible to get exactly right but judges are becoming less tolerant about errors in the face of injunctions from the employer.

In summary, therefore, it’s not the secret ballot itself that’s the major issue. Most members would probably resist any move to take it away now. It’s the rules surrounding its application and who is in charge of drawing them up. If it’s the Union itself, then no problem. If it’s the state or the courts then they will certainly be designed to make striking more difficult.

Unite union in Britain (not connected with Unite in NZ) is currently in dispute with British Airways over the employer’s plans to cut 1,700 jobs, impose a two-year wage freeze and get cabin crew working longer for less. When union members were balloted in December for a planned 12 day strike over Christmas, they supported strike action by 92% on an 80% turnout. BA then used the High Court to have the strike ruled illegal on the basis of a spurious technicality relating to the balloting process.

Unfortunately, not all workers have the same level of confidence as the posties, who often defy such decisions. The Unite action was suspended while a second strike ballot was taken. The new result was still impressive, although unsurprisingly the loss of momentum meant that the “yes” vote dropped by around 10%.

This brief look at the situation in Britain indicates that the CTU has been very complacent by endorsing Henare’s bill. Even if the bill does reflect the current status quo, it is far better that the law remains silent on the matter (as it is now), than give the employers an opportunity to challenge strike ballots through the courts.

The CTU also ignores an important point of working class principle; unions are workers organisations and should be run by workers from top to bottom. The form of union processes should be a democratic decision for union members, not National party hacks.

We need a movement willing and capable of launching a militant campaign for positive workers’ rights, including the unrestricted right to strike. The CTU has proven once again that it has no intention of leading such a movement.

A Private Member’s Bill introduced by the National Party MP Tau Henare has been drawn from the ballot to be debated in Parliament. The Bill proposes to amend the Employment Relations Act as follows:

“A strike may not proceed under this Act, unless the question has been submitted to a secret ballot of those employees who are members of the union that would become parties to the strike if it proceeded.”

The Council of Trade Unions has announced its “support in principle” for the bill, “as it largely reflects current practice.”

The British experience may be of some use in analysing the effect of secret ballots. Over there, the law has required a secret ballot prior to strike action for nearly 30 years. I asked an official with the Postal section of the Communication Workers Union his opinion on the issue. This is his response: [Read more…]

The following article is a shortened and edited version of a Workers Party internal document by Jared Phillips printed in The Spark February 2010

Initially socialist organisations in New Zealand responded to the anti-strike laws contained in the Employment Contracts Act and Employment Relations Act with some vigor, including in The Spark. In response to increased strike restrictions put in place by the Labour-led Labour-Alliance coalition in 2000, the Socialist Workers Organisation conducted a campaign in some workplaces and in the public centered around a petition, which was significant as far as petition campaigns extend.

Casino workers on strike 2008 during bargaining

The new legislation (ERA 2000) included a ban on solidarity strikes and political strikes. In summary the legislation, still in place, from a working class point of view, is this, ‘We can only strike for our own contract, only when negotiations have broken down, and if we do engage in an unlawful strike (i.e. a strike for any other reason), there could be severe damages penalties against us and the union’. It is concerning that the left has withdrawn its activism from the issue because, as the comparison goes, this is the new ‘leg-iron of labour’. [Read more…]

At the end of October parliament voted 69 to 53 to send the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill, which contains a number of proposed changes to ACC, to select committee. The National Party initially had trouble getting together the numbers, with ACT insisting the changes didn’t go far enough. Despite some initial concerns however, the Maori Party eventually fell into line, with the bizarre sounding justification, “We know that Maori have consistently had less access to ACC entitlements than other groups, under existing legislation. While this Bill would further restrict entitlements, we are particularly interested in hearing how the scheme may be altered to address the underlying bias to Maori.”

Many of the changes have already been met with strong public protest. New guidelines that would require sexual abuse victims to be diagnosed with a mental illness under the US Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Version 4 before they can receive counselling led to rallies in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, each attracting 200 people. A smaller protest also took place in Dunedin. [Read more…]

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